Bank boss plans to sell €5m home

Friday, January 11, 2013

By Tommy Barker, Property Editor

AIB chief executive David Duffy has put his family home in West Cork up for sale for an undisclosed sum, likely to be €4m-€5m.

The renovated and extended former period Glebe House — which in the 1990s was used for rehabilitating drug addicts via a European group called La Patriarch — is on nine acres by the banks of the Ilen River, near Skibbereen.

It is located near the homes of David Puttnam, Jeremy Irons, and other celebrities in the West Cork ‘millionaire’s row’, between Skibbereen and the chic sailing port of Baltimore. Also nearby is the Inish Beg Estate, with upmarket guest houses attracting international visitors.

David Duffy, 51, AIB’s chief executive since late 2011, bought the former Glebe/Church of Ireland rectory in 2003 for over €3m from IT entrepreneur Leonard Donnelly, who spent years renovating it.

Mr Duffy — working at the time for different banks, mostly overseas — lavished time and further cash on it and its grounds, including ground excavations to expose river views.

Although he is Leinster-born and educated, the Dublin-based father of three is to retain West Cork links. His parents (who have lived at Glebe House) ran the Bunratty Inn in Schull for a number of years. Sources say the sale was prompted by the fact his children are now headed to the US for college.

The immaculate eight- bed property and its golf- course-like grounds has a central courtyard, bbq terraces and hot tub, two guest cottages and outbuildings, a gym, tennis court, jetty and estuary river frontage, as well as a productive walled garden, and planning is in place for a boathouse.

Glebe House appeared on a property website on Wednesday via agents Charles P McCarthy in Skibbereen, who said the price was not being disclosed at Mr Duffy’s request.

The agents indicated that viewings would be restricted to interested parties only.